Pro-apoptotic peptides-based cancer therapies: challenges and strategies to enhance therapeutic efficacy.

Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide. Despite many advances in the field of cancer therapy, an effective cure is yet to be found. As a more potent alternative for the conventional small molecule anti-cancer drugs, pro-apoptotic peptides have emerged as a new class of anticancer agents.

Fusion of gelonin and anti-insulin-like growth factor-1 receptor (IGF-1R) affibody for enhanced brain cancer therapy.

Owing to the extraordinary potency in inhibiting protein translation that could eventually lead to apoptosis of tumor cells, ribosome-inactivating proteins (RIPs) such as gelonin have been considered attractive drug candidates for cancer therapy. However, due to several critical obstacles (e.g.

Molecular tumor targeting of gelonin by fusion with F3 peptide.

Therapeutically potent macromolecular drugs have shown great promise for overcoming the limitations of small-molecule anti-cancer drugs. But tumor cell-selective intracellular delivery of the macromolecules remains a major hurdle for their successful clinical application. To overcome this challenge, we engineered a novel genetic fusion protein (F3-Gel) that composed of F3 peptide, a tumor-homing peptide, and gelonin, a plant-derived ribosome-inactivating protein (RIP), and then evaluated its anti-cancer activity in vitro and in vivo.

Inhibition of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Receptor 3 Reduces Migration of Gastric Cancer Cells.

Angiogenesis induced by proangiogenic molecules such as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a key process in the progression and metastasis of gastric cancer. In this study, we investigated the role of VEGF-C/VEGF receptor 3 (VEGFR3) axis in cell proliferation and migration/invasion of human gastric cancer cells (hGCCs). VEGF-C did not enhance cell proliferation but increased cell migration/invasion by approximately ∼50% in hGCCs (AGS and SNU-484).